Local telcos keen to team up with new Netflix service here

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings giving his keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Netflix's Singapore launch is part of its push into 130 new nations, on top of the 60 where it already has a presence.PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

The Singapore launch is part of Netflix's simultaneous push into 130 new countries, on top of the 60 where it already has a presence. This was announced yesterday by Netflix chief executive Reed

What's playing on local screens

R21-rated movies

A Clockwork Orange

American History X

Fight Club

Kill Bill Volume 1

Pulp Fiction

Sex And The City: The Movie

Notable movies available here but not in the US version

Argo

Gravity

Inception

Man Of Steel

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Pacific Rim

Seven

Star Trek (2009)

The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring

The Shawshank Redemption

Notable TV shows available here but not in the US version

Better Call Saul

Black Sails

Elementary

Penny Dreadful

Under The Dome

Top TV shows not in local version

Breaking Bad

Doctor Who

House Of Cards

Mad Men

Sherlock

The Walking Dead

There is one Chinese TV series and a few Bollywood movies in the local version of Netflix.

There are also no South Korean TV dramas and a mere handful of Japanese anime titles.

Hastings at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The service streams popular movies and TV shows for a flat monthly fee and delivers content over the Internet. This allows users to watch shows wherever they want, without sticking to a broadcast schedule.

Users can view Netflix on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, as well as via set-top boxes with the Netflix app installed. In Singapore, it will cost between $11 and $17 a month to access Netflix's library.

A spokesman for StarHub said it was exploring a partnership with Netflix. This will allow viewers access to Netflix content over a StarHub set-top box.

When the American streaming company revealed late last year that it was planning a 2016 launch of the service here, many local consumers thought the service would have curated offerings due to the strict censorship laws here.

The content includes uncensored versions of Orange Is The New Black, Spartacus and Marco Polo.

TV series Orange Is The New Black weaves a tale about life in a women's prison and features nudity and drug use, while dramas Spartacus and Marco Polo are known for their casual depiction of female nudity and sexual orgies.

Netflix said that rather than removing any titles - some of which have been rated R21 - from its library, it will follow rating guidelines from the MDA to ensure these titles reach the appropriate audience.

As the higher-tier Netflix accounts allow for multiple users to use the same account simultaneously, the viewing restriction involves the use of a parental-control personal identification number (PIN) set by the account owner to restrict access to adult titles. Currently, Netflix is offering the same restricted PIN access to users in Germany.

"We hope that by giving this granular level of control, governments don't have to worry so much about an across-the-board style of content restriction," Mr Greg Peters, Netflix's chief streaming and partnerships officer and president of Netflix Japan, said in an exclusive interview with The Straits Times.

"It is a model that we have in Germany. It is not only regulatory thinking, but also what consumers expect when they use the service. We thought Singapore was an appropriate market to do it again.

"We remain hopeful that Singapore regulators will see the benefit of this model and hopefully evolve that over time."

Checks on the library offered to Singapore revealed that some shows, including Netflix's first original production, House Of Cards, are missing from the local service. But that is not because of censorship.

A Netflix spokesman explained that the rights for some titles such as House Of Cards had been sold to other partners in the region.

Other rights, such as those for Hong Kong action films and Japanese anime, were picked up only for the United States.

Netflix said that moving forward, it aims to pick up global rights for all of its streaming content.

A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on January 08, 2016, with the headline 'Local telcos keen to team up with new Netflix service here'. Print Edition | Subscribe

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